The worldwide PhaseOne dealers carry the lenses and showcase them, you can try them before you buy, you have full Guarantee.
Additionally there were numerous improvements done to the lens, starting from the mechanics, the new Aperture with 12 blades, the Zeiss made Surface Eloxed,
new antiflare coatings and selected lenses as well as a new bajonet mount adapted to the Mamiya 645 AF proportions with better precision.
Further: It is the only lens in the Market who has medium Format TS and Superrotation, there simply isn´t any competiton -
beside the Hasselblad HTS which is a whole diffferent concept and also costing several thousand dollars and working only on the Hx bodies.
Sorry Stefan, you may be a fine gentleman, but I'm not buying what you are saying. I've been following the Kiev, Hartblei story for a long time and have a number of the products. (Including six lenses.)
OK, Michael told me I could return it if I didn't like it. So nothing new about the guarantee. I bought a 55mm shift from him and was happy. It was not very expensive. Additionally, there is not much to go wrong with a manual focus manual diaphragm lens, unless you drop it.
Do the improvements warrant a 4+ fold increase in price? I think the fact that Hartblei realized there could be a demand, and the lack of competition are the most telling in your post. Especially among MF digital photographers who are now used to paying tens of thousands for digital backs and several thousand for a lens. What about the 55mm, 65mm, 80mm, and 120mm. Are these still available and what do they cost/ They're on the Hartblei site I understand that these use the glass and lens designs mostly from Arsenal - lenses that are very inexpensive. Doesn't the Hartblei 80mm SuperRotator use the 80mm Arsat lens? Aren't all the Hartblei lenses repackaged Arsats? (Ecept for the 3 new Zeiss models.) Doesn't Hartblei sell this 80mm Arsat lens directly for $60. Why are the shift lenses so much less expensive than the Super Rotators (that you say are out of stock on the Hartblei web site.)
Here is the pricing that is listed on the Hartblei web site:
MC PCS Arsat 45mm / f=3.5 Shift
w/ Pentacon Six or Kiev 88 lens mount $295
MC PCS Arsat 55mm / f=4.5 Shift
w/ Pentacon Six lens mount $395
MC PCS Arsat 65mm / f=3.5 Shift
w/ Pentacon Six or Kiev 88 lens mount $295
MC Arsat 80mm / f=2.8 Normal
w/ Pentacon Six or Kiev 88 lens mount $60
Is the performance of these very inexpensive lenses substantially different from the ones that are in the - no longer available- SuperRotator mounts? Inquiring minds want to know.
So the 45mm shift lens (no tilt) lens is $295, but when you put it in the SuperRotator mount, improve the coating and change it to a Mamiya mount, and sell it through Phase One, the $3990 price is justified? I notice the Hartblei site says the lenses can be used on Mamiyas and Contax cameras. Is this only via the $45 adapter, or are they sold in those mounts? By the way, all Pentacon mounted lenses can work on Canon, Nikon and other cameras via an adapter - $45 adapter?
Also note there is a simple $85 shift adapter that lets you use the Pentacon Mount medium format lenses as shift lenses on 35mm cameras.
Here's a link to the Hartblei price list:
http://www.hartblei.com/price_list.htm